Health department reminds public that hand-washing prevents spread of illness

With Hudsonville’s Park Elementary School closed Friday because of a gastrointestinal illness afflicting about a quarter of the school’s students and staff, the Ottawa County Health Department is reminding everyone about the importance of hand-washing and not preparing food if you’re ill.

With Hudsonville’s Park Elementary School closed Friday because of a gastrointestinal illness afflicting about a quarter of the school’s students and staff, the Ottawa County Health Department is reminding everyone about the importance of hand-washing and not preparing food if you’re ill.

Symptoms of GI illness might include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, cramps, muscle aches, chills and fever lasting one to two days.

A spokeswoman for the health department, Shannon Felgner, said the communicable disease team received a call from the school Thursday with a report that it had about 100 students and five staff out sick.

On Friday, classes were canceled, so the school could be cleaned and the department could inspect the school.

Collected specimens will be sent to labs today.

Felgner said the transmission of the GI illness most likely came from student-to-student contact and improper or no hand-washing after bathroom visits.

There were also a few instances of vomiting at the school, Felgner said.

“Hand-washing is so, so important. It’s one of those things that can really prevent a lot of things, seasonal flu, GI illness, cold.”

Felgner also said sometimes the GI illness is incorrectly identified as the flu.

“What we’d hate to see happen is people think they already had the flu so they don’t need to have a flu shot,” Felgner said. “The flu is a respiratory illness. It’s not a stomach illness.”